It's time to replace the accepted false, terror-driven Arab narrative regarding Palestine with the historical and factual story of what land comprised Palestine and who actually lived there.
This Blog endeavors to explain what land comprises Palestine today, and to whom it belongs.

Follow by Email

Saturday, January 16, 2016

"The U.N. General Assembly exceeded its authority,
exceeded its jurisdiction. It did not have the power to divide the
country,"

JERUSALEM, Israel - This year marks the 91st
anniversary of the resolution that transformed the Middle East and laid
the groundwork for the formation of the modern state of Israel.

On April 25, 1920, delegations from the Allied
nations that triumphed in World War I met in San Remo, Italy, to divide
the Middle Eastern lands they had conquered.

That historical meeting transformed the Middle East
because, for the first time in nearly 2,000 years, the world's nations
called for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in the land that was
then called Palestine.

That decision effectively answered a fundamental
issue that still plagues the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks today:
whether Israel is an occupying power or it has a rightful claim to the
land.

Dividing an Empire

In San Remo - England, France, Italy, and Japan,
with the United States as an observer, divided the Ottomam Empire empire
into three mandates: Iraq, Syria and Palestine.

Until its defeat in World War 1, the 400-year-old
empire had spread itself throughout the Middle East. Now, France would
oversee Syria, while Iraq and Palestine fell under Great Britain.

The resolution also included the Balfour
Declaration, written by England's Lord Balfour in 1917. The declaration
called for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the
Jewish people." One British diplomat, Lord Curzon, called it Israel's
"Magna Carta."

Arab's Lion-Share, Israel's Niche

"Chaim Weizman said, at the time, you can say that
the Israeli state was born on the 25th of April in San Remo because that
was the significance of it," Sandell said.

Howard Grief said the resolution, which was adopted by the League of Nations, established several important precedents.

"The Arabs got the lion's share….I mean they got Syria, which was subsequently divided between Syria and Lebanon," Grief said.

"They got all of Mesopotamia and all of Arabia. This
is what Balfour himself said. 'Why are you complaining? You are getting
all these lands and we're granting a niche - he called it a niche - to
the Jewish people who were going to get Palestine," he said.

Immutable Law

Grief also explained that the 1920 San Remo resolution supersedes later U.N. resolutions.

"There is a doctrine in international law," Grief
said. "Once you recognize a certain situation, the matter is executed.
You can't change it."

"The U.N. General Assembly exceeded its authority,
exceeded its jurisdiction. It did not have the power to divide the
country," he said.

Settling Contested 'Settlements'

But what about all those contested Israeli
"settlements" in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) that many people -
including U.N. Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon - say are illegal?

"Settlements are covered in Article 6 of the mandate for Palestine," Eli Hertz, president of Myths and Facts, explained to conference participants.

"Again the legal international document of the
mandate for Palestine and [it] clearly says that not only [do] the Jews
have the right to settlement, but the world has the obligation to help
them to settle," Hertz explained.

This legal right of the Jews to build in Judea and
Samaria or in east Jerusalem neighborhoods is little understood in the
world today.

Sandell said he hopes to remedy that problem.

"We feel that we have an historical duty to just
bring the facts to the table," Sandell said. "Because we are here
dealing with historical facts and this should be known and this should
be taken into consideration in the public debate."

Watch More:

Watch expanded interviews with some of the
participants in this historic event commemorating the 90th anniversary
of the San Remo resolution:

Tomas Sandell, the founding director of the European Coalition for Israel,
helped organize the 90th anniversary event. ECI seeks to education
European leaders "about the complex realities of the conflict in the
Middle East by acknowledging the right for Israel, as the only democracy
in the region, to exist within secure borders." Click here for more from Sandell.

Eli Hertz is the president of Myths and Facts, a research organization focused much on the Middle East. Hertz has written a short pamphlet on this subject called "This Land is My Land: Mandate for Palestine, Legal Aspects of Jewish Rights," an excellent primer and succinct explanation of the legal foundation of the Jewish state.